Angry Birds Star Wars hits Android on November 8

Last week Rovio teased the announcement of a Star Wars-branded Angry Birds game and today they have officially taken off the wraps of the project. Angry Birds Star Wars is due to hit Google Play and the Amazon Appstore on November 8, featuring stages based on classic settings like Tatooine and the Death Star. As you can see, there will be plenty of familiar characters there as well. As hinted by the original invitation to check out Toys 'R Us, there will be a big merchandising push, but it won't kick off until October 28.

It's still early, so it's hard to say if the game will be significantly better or different from previous Angry Birds titles, but the Rovio CEO boasts that this will be "the best Angry Birds game we've ever done". Angry Birds Space added a nice spin on the classic gameplay, though it was still very much in line with what we've come to expect.

Needless to say, lots of people love Star Wars, and there's something to be said for piggie-shaped TIE fighters. Is the Angry Birds brand still fresh and lively to you, or does this kind of co-branding qualify as jumping the shark? It certainly feels like between the merchandising and the endless tide of off-shoot games, the brand is been worn out, but maybe that's just me.

I agree, I felt AB jumped the shark back LONG ago as I bored of the game and ongoing mods pretty quickly, but the business 'dark-side' of my brain applauds them for keeping AB so-called-relevant for so long. With all the merchandising and the crashing of Zynga, I would love to see the AB franchise financial records to see if they really made a good investment.

Toys R Us had up but then yanked a bunch of sets that let you play Angry Birds Star Wars. They had a Jabba's Palace, AT-AT, etc. They are called "Star Wars Angry Birds Fighter Pods Strike". Those should be fun for all of 10 minutes.